(Photo by Ed Zurga/Getty Images)
The KC Royals said goodbye to a franchise icon Sunday. He’ll be missed.
Sometimes, most often in the dead of baseball’s winters when my mind drifts to games past because there are none to watch live, and spring training is just something to look forward to, it doesn’t seem so long ago that I sat in Kauffman Stadium and witnessed George Brett play his last game for the KC Royals. Since then, I’ve seen several others play out their final Royal moments.
I watched Paul Splittorff throw his last pitch from a seat in Royals Stadium’s upper deck; on an otherwise pleasant late June afternoon in 1984 Splittorff, the winningest pitcher in club history, took a pounding from Oakland.